One scene from the movie Die Hard has been coming to mind since the terrorist bombings of England. Officer McClain is inside the building radioing the 911 dispatchers who don't believe his reports of a terrorist takeover of Nakagumi tower. But then the terrorists start firing automatic weapons at the twinkie eating cop. McClain (Bruce Willis) shouts out, "Welcome to the party!"

What is more important to remember is this: When the West did unite after World War II to beat communism, the long Cold War began without pity. They took no prisoners. They all stood together, from the United States to Norway, from Britain to Spain, from Belgium to Switzerland. And they did bring down the biggest empire. Communism collapsed.

I fear those naïve Muslims who think that they are beating the West have now achieved their worst crime of all. The West is now going to war against not only Muslims, but also, sadly, Islam as a religion. (emphasis added)

Well, I don't know how 'sad' that is; I'd say it's long overdue. It's time to put on our red cross crusader uniforms and take care of business.

Good ol' Rob has an interesting post about work today, one I'm too tired and frustrated (AdAware has so far found about 400 gremlins in my machine... and counting) to respond to right now. Your thoughts will be appreciated.

Blogs are better than the Old Media in general, and much, much better than the New York Times Liberal Death Star in particular. TigerHawk proves it::

Regular readers know that I love pointing out that on April 2 this year the New York Times declared that the U.S. dollar was headed down, "no matter what" owing to the Bush Administration's economic policies, and it has done very little but go up since then.

Less well-known is that the Times has also lost its shirt in the stock market. On April 16, during what proved to be an extremely ephemeral downdraft in the U.S. stock markets, the NYT ran a front page headline that blared "Stocks Plunge to Lowest Point Since Election." It was not clear at the time what the relationship was between the low level of the stock market in April and the election (since the market had bottomed some days before the election), but the Times purported to see one worthy of a front page headline.

Yesterday, the S&P and the Nasdaq hit their highest levels in the four years since the carefree days between the Clinton Administration and the onset of war on September 11. Imagine my surprise that this morning's New York Times not only does not mention this fact on the front page, but it is nowhere to be seen in all of Section A! It is almost as if the short-term performance of the financial markets has nothing to do with the Bush Administration.

But in the longer term, the signals coming out of Beijing suggest this is the first of many steps towards a flexible exchange rate. If this is true, then it is probably the most significant economic event since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The super slow-mo crash/transmorgrification of Chinese communism has been fascinating, contradicting all western dogmas willy-nilly, and continues apace. Read the whole thing, and file it away for future reference. You may well have read it here first.

Seen at low tide

HummingbirdFinally, my first hummingbirds. Saw them on a fire bush in Crystal Beach, FL. My rental's neighbor's yard is all xeriscaped, which is ugly to me but just fine with the little hummers. At first, I thought they were the biggest hornets I'd ever seen.

Flamingo!One of these dudes flew right over my house. I couldn't believe it. And please don't tell me it was a roseated spoonbill because it was a frickin' flamingo, dude! Huge and pink and right there above me. I was like so freaking out, you know?

Black SkimmerThese beauties are getting scarce, but one flew by yesterday at low tide on the hunt for minnows.

Dead sea turtlecool, but smelly

Reddish EgretThese have been hanging out around the pool quite a bit lately. Must be a new group of adolesent birds -- the youngsters like to hunt where the water is clear, and it takes them a day to figure out there are not now and never will be fish in the swimming pool no matter how clear the water.

Sand Piper

Brown PelicanI saw a flock of about 200 of these at Disappearing Island yesterday, just south of Anclote Island on the west coast of FL. Good to see such a large flock.

Wood PeckerThey've developed a sudden interest in the orange tree, which just went into bloom.